Joy (2015)
Directed by David O. Russell
A story based on the life of a struggling Long Island single mom who became one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs.
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4 films that influenced Joy
What critics say influenced Joy
Or maybe Russell’s script was so addled that its early scenes were salvaged in post-production, a thought that makes his excellent “The Fighter” and exceptional “Silver Linings Playbook” seem like outright miracles.
Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle director David O. Russell reassembles much of his stock company (Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro) and most of his stock mannerisms (Scorsese-ian camera moves and song cues, nonsensical exuberance) for this extremely loose biopic about the inventor of the Miracle Mop, but the results have never been this sloppy.
In fact, several of them have come from writer/director David O. Russell, whose sixth sense for what audiences will enjoy brought us “The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle.”
Dysfunction long has driven Russell’s filmmaking, from his early work (“Flirting with Disaster”) to his much-heralded, more mainstream output of recent years (“The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook”).
David O. Russell wrote (or rather, rewrote) Joy (2015) for Jennifer Lawrence, who he directed to an Academy Award in Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and an Oscar nomination in American Hustle.
Russell, an Oscar-nominated director who excels in telling these gritty blue-collar stories (“The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “American Hustle”) has a rare misfire with “Joy.”
"Look what they make you give," as Clive Owen's dying assassin puts it in The Bourne Identity, and the way that success is as much a matter of taking the blows and dragging yourself to your feet again as it is about inspiration or even perspiration is part of the message of Joy.
Russell’s take on domestic life has never been straightforward (his 1994 debut, Spanking the Monkey, was a brisk tale of mother-son incest) and the new film is yet another ambivalent family portrait.
Russell's films — from 1994's Spanking The Monkey through 2012's Best Picture nominee Silver Linings Playbook — have often obsessed over toxic, intrusive family members, and the protagonists struggling to keep them at arm's length without cutting contact entirely.
His first films ranged from an angry, depraved coming-of-age tale (“Spanking the Monkey”) to a Desert Storm “Wild Bunch” of sorts (“Three Kings”) and a quirky little ditty that seemed stolen from the vault of Wes Anderson (“I Heart Huckabees”).
His earlier works — including “Spanking the Monkey,” “Flirting with Disaster” and “Three Kings,” plus the great “I Heart Huckabees” — were critical darlings that only slightly connected with the mainstream.
Much has already been made about the fact that Russell — always a fan of sharply written, exuberantly played female characters, going back to “Spanking the Monkey” and “Flirting With Disaster” — has now written and directed his first picture centered wholly around a woman.
This is easily the weakest outing by director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables).